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DISCOVERING GOD IN HIS WORLD 


BT 

Katherine Gerwick 



/ 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


DISCOVERING GOD IN HIS WORLD 



By 

KATHERINE GERWICK 

H 


NEW YORK 

THE WOMANS PRESS 

1920 



Copyright, 1920, by 

National Board, Young Womens Christian Associations 
of the United States of America 


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jvJAK i o iS20 




§)CI, A585219 

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SUGGESTED READING REFERENCES 

Books 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, by Tyler 
Dennett 

An analysis of the forces contributing to the 
progress of democracy in the East. 

Understanding South America, by Clayton 
Sedgwick Cooper 

A book devoted to promoting a more sympa¬ 
thetic and intelligent conception of South 
American characteristics, traditions and ideals. 

Working Women of the Orient, by Margaret 
Burton 

A presentation of the developing industrialism 
of the Orient, and its effect upon the woman¬ 
hood of the East. 

Magazines 

Asia 

The Atlantic Monthly 

The World Outlook 

The Association Monthly 

The National Geographic Magazine 

The Pan American Magazine 

Note: It is not intended that the questions at the close 
of each chapter should he discussed in their present order. 
They are merely suggestive, and should be arranged and 
supplemented by the leader. 






CONTENTS 


Chapter I. A Common Heritage . 

The things we share as women, joy and sorrow, 
life and death, know no nationality, no creed, no 
color. The differences separating women of the 
various races are only superficial. God is found 
in the common desires and aspirations of women >s 
hearts. 

Chapter II. The Gift of Health . 

Through the new ideal of health now coloring our 
national life and beginning to permeate the Orient 
as well, we discover God in the intelligent use of 
our mental and moral equipment. 

Chapter III. A Divine Impulsion 

In a brief survey of women as affected by social, 
economic and religious conditions, we find God in 
the need for expression which actuates the spiritu¬ 
ally-starved womanhood of the world. 

Chapter IV. Bearers of the Torch 

Glimpses of student life around the world show 
that there are certain traits which characterize all 
students, uniting them with a common bond of fel¬ 
lowship. God is discovered in the students ’ desire 
to serve. 

Chapter V. Women Who Work . 

In the advance of the nations toward an economic 
independence, and the necessity that has taken 
women from the home into the factory, we are dis- 


PAGE 

9 


17 


25 


33 


41 


6 THE ULTIMATE QUEST 

covering God working through the Christian effort 
to interpret his teachings in terms of daily living. 

Chapter VI. Woman’s Work for Women 

Through woman’s contribution toward freeing the 
womanhood of the world from the tyrannies of the 
past and leading it into the beauty and fulness of 
life, God is discovered in the universal urge to 
serve humanity. 

Chapter VII. God in Human Achievement . 

That God, discovered in the beauties and phe¬ 
nomena of nature, is still working for the prog¬ 
ress of his Kingdom is shown through the wonders 
of human achievement in the realm of science and 
invention. 

Chapter VIII. The Art of Living Together . 

Housing, occupations and recreation are universal 
needs, and the problems of the community are 
much the same the world over. We discover God 
through the age-old channels of human contacts. 

Chapter IX. A World of Neighbors 

Our widening horizons, our new sense of kinship 
with the rest of mankind, show with increasing 
clearness that the old day of national isolation is 
past. We discover God in the larger life of world 
citizenship. 

Chapter X. “The Vision Splendid” 

The magnitude and opportunity of the work of 
interpreting God in the signs of the times call for 
the most adequate equipment. We find God in the 
response of the individual and his readiness to 
prepare for the world task awaiting him. 


PAGE 

53 


63 


71 


79 


87 








































































































































. 




































































































Are you different 

? 

• 

Orient or Occident 
Girls 

Laugh and sing 
Toil and endure 
Suffer and weep 
Love and rejoice 

Regardless 

of 

Race or color 

A Common Heritage 
Postergraph I 

The ten inserted postergraphs are intended as suggestive 
poster material and should anticipate the several chapters. 



THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


CHAPTER ONE 
A COMMON HERITAGE 

“From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the 
inhabitants of the earth. He f ashioneth their hearts alike. ’ ’ 

—Psalm 33: 14, 15. 

Women of the Past 

Out of the shadowy background of history they 
emerge,—women! Sometimes they are triumphant 
spirits wearing proudly the crown of womanhood; 
sometimes they are stooped with service or stum¬ 
bling with heads bowed in grief; sometimes they 
stray aside with light steps, to chase butterflies ; 
sometimes they bear children in their arms or on 
their backs. Joyful, sorrowing, serious-eyed,—they 
are the womanhood of the ages! Gathered from the 
languorous lands of the Far East, from the icy 
regions of the frozen North, from the mysterious 
realms of the tropics, from the clamorous civiliza¬ 
tion of the Western world, they gaze at us with 
eyes that speak the same message—the message of 
courage, love, endurance, faith—a deathless inherit¬ 
ance ! Religious and social customs have contested 



10 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


this heritage, climatic and economic conditions have 
challenged it in vain; it stands inviolate, secure to 
all women for all time. 

Women During the War 

If women of the past and of the present possess 
emotions and feelings which cause them to love and 
suffer alike, if the heart of the Oriental swells with 
the same love, surges with the same grief, as does 
that of her Occidental sister—then only the veneer 
which climate and race and religion have super¬ 
imposed, differentiates the women of the world. 
The women of Shantung, the birthplace of Con¬ 
fucius, bade farewell to their brothers and sons 
crossing the “Black Water,’’ to labor in devastated 
Europe with much the same desolation in their 
hearts as did the women of England, speeding their 
men to French soil. During the great war when 
men dying together mingled the blood of friend and 
enemy, of Christian and pagan and Jew, the sor¬ 
rowing women in a remote village of India bowed 
under the same grief as did the Hausfrau in her 
German kitchen, and the farmer’s wife on a Kansas 
prairie. If all the suffering of the world could be 
analyzed it would be found to possess the same 
elements. 

This universal desire of women to minister to the 
object of their devotion found its highest expression 
during the war, when the women of the world 
labored together for the comfort and well-being of 


A COMMON HERITAGE 


11 


the vast thousands of men on the battlefields of 
Europe. Princess and peasant, student and factory 
girl, Oriental and Occidental,—with unaccustomed 
fingers they stitched and folded and pressed. And 
when the fruit of the labor of the women of India, 
who had met together for the first time in the Red 
Cross work, was hauled away to the station in an¬ 
cient bullock carts,—how strange a mingling was it 
of past and present! 

Women and Marriage 

Since the time when Rebecca journeyed forth so 
long ago to meet Isaac, her affianced husband, 
womanhood has stood wistful and eager upon the 
threshold of marriage. Whether it is in a land 
where marriage is a sacrament or not a sacrament, 
whether love is exalted or debased,—the dreams, 
the doubts, the fears of all women on the eve of 
marriage strike a mighty chord of bridal music. 

In the United States a girl chooses her future 
husband with a freedom unknown to Eastern lands; 
in lofty Peru the senorita drops a rose over the bal¬ 
cony to her waiting lover; in the South Sea Islands 
the maiden, pursued, allows herself to be captured 
by the man of the greatest physical prowess. Trap¬ 
pings and ceremonials differ as tradition and 
custom vary with race and religion, but certain 
fundamentals are independent of the limitations of 
race or color or creed. 

In China the patient bride, crowned with king- 


12 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


fisher feathers, stands for three days beside her 
gorgeous lacquer bed, on which are arranged her 
clothes and presents, while the relatives and friends 
of the families inspect and pass judgment upon her 
appearance and her dowry. Underneath the bril¬ 
liantly embroidered bridal costume, underneath the 
wails and tears which custom has decreed she must 
shed in order not to appear joyful at leaving her 
father’s house, what lies buried in this Chinese 
woman’s breast? A stoical fatalism, perhaps, as 
she looks upon women used as beasts of burden; 
upon the concubines who constitute one of China’s 
greatest curses; upon the sordid poverty which 
makes the death of thousands of babies yearly 
almost an economic necessity. Fatalism, yes, but 
also stirring in her breast there is surely a bit of 
the same tenderness, of the same mysterious happi¬ 
ness that floods the heart of every woman on her 
wedding day. 

Women and Suffering 

Women of the Western world, torn with loneli¬ 
ness, go laden with flowers to the quiet resting 
places of their dead. Japanese mothers who mourn 
the loss of a child, make pilgrimages to the shrine of 
the Children’s God, carrying great stones which 
they pile about the shrine, in order to lighten the 
tasks of their babies in their next existence. That 
the mother who has an abiding faith in the Chris¬ 
tian religion finds consolation unknown to her Jap- 


A COMMON HERITAGE 13 

anese sister, does not weaken the bond that unites 
them. 

Have you ever watched the blue-clad Japanese 
women coaling the great steamers at Nagasaki? 
Hour after hour, catching the heavy baskets of coal 
as the men toss them from the barges, they toil, in 
order that there may be rice in the bowls at home. 
The North American mother bending over a wash- 
tub, the Oriental coaling steamers,—both have 
aching backs and hearts burdened with the common 
problems of fuel and rent and food! 

Out of the shadowy background of history they 
emerge,—women, joyful, sorrowing, serious-eyed, 
women who in wifehood and motherhood recognize 
no racial barriers, women bound together by invisi¬ 
ble filaments of love and sacrifice and sorrow! 

Reading References 

The Mother, The Atlantic Monthly , February 
1919. 

Working Women of the Orient, Burton, Chapter 
One. 

Understanding South America, Cooper, Chapter 
Twenty-three. 

Javanese Letters, The Atlantic Monthly , Novem¬ 
ber, 1919. 

Tales of a Polygamous City, The Atlantic 
Monthly , Dec., 1917; Jan., May, Oct., 1918; Feb., 
1919. 

Japanese Girls and Women, Bacon, pp. 257-260. 


14 THE ULTIMATE QUEST 

Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. What qualities of yours do you find to be 
peculiarly Western? 

2. Make a list of strictly Oriental qualities. 

3. Name some qualities which as Americans we 
possess in common with Oriental women. 

4. What is your instinctive reaction to people 
who differ from you in habits and traditions? 

5. What can we learn from Oriental women? 
From the women of the South American countries ? 
Ref. Understanding South America, pp. 31-34. 

6. Discuss what is the best preparation for 
motherhood. 

7. Discuss the Eastern seclusion of women as 
compared with Western liberty. 

8. Which of the two types discussed above is 
more fitted to be a companion and guide to her 
children ? 

9. In what ways, if any, has the war knit more 
closely together the women of the world? Ref. 
“The War Came to India Bringing Gifts,” World 
Outlook, March, 1919. 

10. What contribution have the women of the 
United States to make to women of the Orient and 
South America? 

11. How can you make that contribution larger ? 







































































































































































































- 














What is your health worth 

? 

Consider 
its value to girls 

Under-fed 
Under-exercised 
U nder- nourished 

Raise 

the health standard 
of 

the world 


The Gift of Health 
Postergraph II 



CHAPTER TWO 
THE GIFT OF HEALTH 


‘ ‘ How good is man ’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy. 

—Kobert Browning. 


The Old Ideal of Beauty 

Time was when women, in order to be beautiful 
and appealing, cultivated an interesting pallor, a 
fragility of appearance that became celebrated in 
song and story; a period when “modesty” was 
rampant—a modesty false and pernicious in its 
teachings; a period when, with minds and bodies 
slack, women were regarded as clinging vines and 
creatures mentally and morally inferior. So far 
has this conception been altered that to-day it is 
almost a disgrace to be sick, and a blot on the na¬ 
tional escutcheon for a baby to die. The frail 
beauty of our great-grandmother’s times has long 
since ceased to be an object of admiration; her 
image has faded, to be replaced by that of a rosy- 
cheeked, broad-shouldered, wholesome girl who 
looks men straight in the eyes, and whose knowl¬ 
edge of good and evil is one of her greatest safe¬ 
guards. 


18 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


Health During the War 

During the war numerous health and recreation 
centers were established by the Young Women’s 
Christian Association, throughout Europe and the 
United States, in which gathered thousands of girls 
and women, fatigued from close confinement in fac¬ 
tory, mill and munition plant, and in free play and 
supervised gymnastic work found rest and recrea¬ 
tion, and kept themselves physically fit for their 
tasks. The spirit of these women is a sign of the 
dawning of a new day in which we realize that it 
is not only unintelligent but sinful to squander our 
health, and allow ourselves to get under par physi¬ 
cally. Martyrs are no longer popular, for we serve 
God most truly when we make the best use of our 
God-given physical and mental equipment. 

Health in the Orient 

The zest with which girls enter into physical 
training is not confined to the Western world. 
Girls in India, Japan, China and the Argentine 
Republic are giving out-of-door pageants, and en¬ 
tering with the greatest enthusiasm into gymnasium 
work. While it is never safe to generalize from 
specific cases, the fact remains significant that even 
a beginning of physical work is being made in coun¬ 
tries where health has been neglected for many cen¬ 
turies, and where women have heretofore lived 
sedentary lives in a seclusion inimical to physical 
and mental development. 


THE GIFT OF HEALTH 


19 


It inevitably follows that with a more vigorous 
physical life, certain changes in dress become neces¬ 
sary. In the United States, girls are beginning to 
realize that they cannot condemn the bound feet of 
a Chinese woman, while their own feet are encased 
in pointed, high-heeled shoes, provocative of all 
sorts of dire results. In China, women have formed 
societies to fight the evils of foot binding, and 
already great improvement has taken place. Chi¬ 
nese girls, when first attending a gymnasium class, 
are horrified at the idea of unbinding their chests, 
which have been constricted with bands of cloth 
wound tightly around the breast. But with the first 
shock over, they revel in the increased freedom, and 
their bodies respond quickly in an improved con¬ 
dition of health. 

The Chinese take most avidly to health crusades. 
Mr. Tyler Dennett, in his “Democratic Movement 
in Asia,” says there is scarcely a city of any size 
in China which does not boast of some sort of a 
health association and a street cleaning department. 
This, he claims, is due to the splendid work done 
by Dr. Peter, lecturer in Public Health for the 
Y. M. C. A. Dr. Peter goes up and down the coun¬ 
try, even invading the Forbidden City in Peking, 
and by ingenious modes of publicity succeeds in 
getting audiences sponsored by the highest Chinese 
officials. To quote from Mr. Dennett: “The 
lectures themselves are unique. They are . . . 
visual rather than verbal, presenting the facts of 


20 THE ULTIMATE QUEST 

China’s sad plight in the matter of sickness by 
means of pantomimes, and mechanical toys which 
offer to the audience numerous opportunities to 
laugh. A laugh is half the battle in China. Dr. 
Peter shows his audiences how people die of tuber¬ 
culosis ; a toy man walks out of a toy house and falls 
into a toy coffin every thirty-seven seconds. ... A 
coolie appears bowed down to the ground with bun¬ 
dles, each bearing the name of one of the common 
Chinese ailments. He cannot run a race with 
Japan, he cannot build railways, schools or ships 
because he has to carry this heavy load . 9 ’ 

In a country where life has been held of little 
value, where families are reckoned as so many 
“mouths,” a new ideal has been placed before the 
country—an ideal of the sanctity of human life. 
Only as this ideal permeates the life of the people, 
accomplishing in its fulfillment the release of 
women from their position of inferiority, and vast 
improvement along lines of sanitation and the treat¬ 
ment of disease, will China take her proper place 
as one of the great nations of the earth. 

The New Ideal for Health 
Indicative of the fact that the whole world is 
responding to the universal need of living life fully 
and joyously, was the International Conference of 
Women Physicians held in New York City in No¬ 
vember, 1919, under the auspices of the Young 
Women’s Christian Association, for the avowed 


THE GIFT OF HEALTH 


21 


purpose of discussing all problems relating to the 
physical and mental health of women and children. 
There were delegates from fourteen nations, each 
bearing data of the conditions and needs in her in¬ 
dividual country. European physicians heavy with 
the thought of warworn women and sickly, under¬ 
nourished babies, of moral questions that are a 
direct outgrowth of the horrors of war; Oriental 
doctors suffering with the knowledge of the igno¬ 
rance and superstitions among the women of their 
lands; women of South America conscious of the 
lack of healthful recreation among their women and 
girls, and burning under the injustice of a lax mar¬ 
riage standard with its evil effects upon the woman¬ 
hood of their countries; women of North America 
believing that human behavior cannot be controlled 
by edicts superimposed upon it, but that a sound 
physical life is the first step toward good morals: 
for six weeks these women of fourteen lands sat 
shoulder to shoulder, absorbed in the universality 
of the problems before them—the problems of 
health and sex and marriage. 

Because of the wide divergence of the conditions 
in the various countries, and the great disparity in 
the individual problems confronting them, it was 
almost impossible to fuse the results of the discus¬ 
sion into any unified expression, but the close bonds 
of sympathy and understanding developed between 
the women of different races, the clarifying of their 
ideas through discussion, a mutual respect born of 


22 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


a knowledge of one another’s problems—all of 
these made this conference one of the most signifi¬ 
cant events of the twentieth century. The women 
of the world studying the health of the world! The 
women of the world working, seeking that there 
may be no more pain or sin or suffering! The 
women of the world believing that through sound 
minds and healthy bodies, comes the highest expres¬ 
sion of service we can render to our Creator! 

Reading References 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Dennett, 
Chapter Six. 

Working Women of the Orient, Burton, Chapter 
Five. 

Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. Discuss whether the standards of dress in the 
United States are worthy of imitation. 

2. What Oriental customs of dress are superior 
to our own? 

3. Give some reasons for the backward condition 
of China and India in regard to health. 

4. What effect have these conditions had upon 
the economic development of these countries? 

5. What changes can you see developing from 
the present interest in health in China? Ref. The 
Democratic Movement in Asia, pp. 126-129. 

6. What do you see as the most valuable out¬ 
come of the First International Conference of 
Women Physicians? 





. 







































































































































Are you satisfied ? 

Do 

Books 

Friends 

Play 

Work 

Beauty 

help you 
to find 
God? 


A Divine Impulsion 
"Postergraph III 



CHAPTER THREE 


A DIVINE IMPULSION 

“All mankind is seeking God.” 

—H. G. Wells. 

The Human Desire for Expression 

God put into the human heart aspiration—a di¬ 
vine impulse to search for the priceless medium 
through which the soul, having sloughed off its 
layers of dead materialism, may emerge into a glo¬ 
rious freedom. 

Go where you will about the globe—to Japan 
where the patient worker blisters her feet from 
standing long hours in the mud and water of the 
rice field; to India where untold numbers of women 
live in the isolation and seclusion of purdah with 
nothing to do—nothing to think about—not even 
the care of their children or their households—vir¬ 
tually prisoners, within four walls; go even to the 
United States where, in spite of its heritage of 
Christian faith and democratic ideals, many thou¬ 
sands of women are so bound by the exigencies of 
finding food and clothing and shelter, that all life 
has become to them a cruel jest; go to the ends of 
the earth, and no matter how degraded and op¬ 
pressed the people, you will yet find, pitiful at times 


26 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


though the attempt may be, a yearning, a desire for 
self-expression that begins and ends with God. 

The Indians of South America 
Among the Indian women of Western South 
America, an ignorance prevails which results in the 
death of more than fifty per cent of the children 
under two years of age; squalor flourishes to such 
an extent that in some places the women wash 
their clothes in open drains, which flow uncovered 
through the middle of the streets; moral conditions 
are such as to make possible this lullaby of an In¬ 
dian mother, quoted from the report of the Panama 
Congress for Christian Work in Latin America, in 
1916: 

“In a night of torment was I conceived: 

Therefore I am like a cloud, which, dark with bitterness 
and grief, dissolves in tears at the slightest breath of the 
wind of adversity, 

Thou, little one, hast come to a sad refuge; 

The fain and the torment have been thy cradle, 
Abandoned and alone I erred, seeking a loving heart. 

No one pities my misery. Cursed be my birth! Cursed 
my conception! 

Cursed the world! Cursed all things! Cursed myself! ’ * 

Yet even among this tragic, degraded and exploited 
group of women is a desire for the beauty of life, 
a reaching up towards God, that finds its chief ex¬ 
pression through their gnarled, misshapen fingers. 
Whence come the symmetry of line, the harmo¬ 
nious blending of colors, the intricacies of pattern 


A DIVINE IMPULSION 


27 


that make the weaving of blankets such an art 
among these Indian women? What of the exqui¬ 
site lace, made from the fibre of native trees, that 
grows in fairy-like form and texture from the con¬ 
stant wielding of bobbin and shuttle by these pa¬ 
tient, sad-eyed workers ? Out of the blackness and 
cruelty of their bitter existence, involuntarily, un¬ 
consciously even, their starved souls are groping in 
the only way they know, for the beauty and light 
of life. 

Among the Japanese 

The gentle-mannered Japanese women, whose 
courtesy and tact are in shining contrast to our 
Western abruptness, spend hours in the arrange¬ 
ment of a few sprays of flowers, finding delight and 
aesthetic pleasure in the beautiful effects produced. 
Who shall say that the surge of appreciation in 
their hearts is not a step toward God ? 

The Worker and Her Thirst for the Beautiful 

It is this unconscious desire for a beauty that will 
enhance and enrich all life, that leads a factory 
girl of my acquaintance, who for thirteen years, in 
gloomy factories, has made buttonholes by un¬ 
counted thousands, to spend all her leisure in learn¬ 
ing to play the piano. Her tired, stumbling fingers 
seek to draw from the inanimate keys the harmonies 
that her starved soul craves. 

Mr. Stewart Bunting, one of Great Britain’s del- 


28 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


egates to the International Labor Conference, tells 
an illuminating story of Cradley Heath, where for 
generations, from mother to daughter, has de¬ 
scended the trade of forging at ponderous anvils the 
heavy chains for which that part of England is 
famous! Until very recently these women worked 
incredibly long hours a day, lifting, stooping, with 
clanging hammers, and in an intense heat that 
could not destroy a divinely implanted seed of 
aspiration! When a chance for education pre¬ 
sented itself to them, did they ask for utilitarian 
courses, that their gray lives might be made easier 
in material ways ? Rather, unquenchable thirst for 
something beautiful that in their bleak existence 
they had never known, led them to say, ‘‘Give us 
music and dancing.” 

Labor and Education 

What accounts for the impetus given to the de¬ 
velopment of Trade Union Colleges, in Great 
Britain and the United States? Is it that labor, 
recognizing its growing power, and in order success¬ 
fully to manage its own affairs, feels the need of 
more education? Superficially it might appear so, 
but urging, clamoring to be heard, is the universal 
cry of the need of every human being to enrich life 
through all its channels of education, to live un¬ 
trammeled by ignorance and superstition, to live 
with souls set free. 

Just as a plant, kept in a dark cellar, though 


A DIVINE IMPULSION 


29 


sickly and ill nourished, reaches feebly towards the 
light—so men and women, soul-starved through 
centuries of social, economic and religious oppres¬ 
sion, grope blindly, instinctively, up—up—ever 
seeking to forget their desolation and pain and deg¬ 
radation, ever aspiring to emerge into the beauty 
and fulness of life in God’s world. 

Beading References 

Working Women of the Orient, Chapter Three. 

Understanding South America, Chapters Eight, 
Nine and Ten. 

Universities and Labor, The Atlantic Monthly, 
August, 1919. 

Harems and Ceremonials, The Yale Review, 
October, 1919. 

Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. List the ways in which girls of your ac¬ 
quaintance express aspiration. 

2. Make a similar list of the aspirations of 
factory girls. 

3. What is the attitude of labor toward educa¬ 
tion? Ref. Universities and Labor, The Atlantic 
Monthly, August, 1919. 

4. In asking for an eight-hour working day, 
did the International Congress of Working Women 
seek only a reduction of hours? 

5. What conditions in our national life are in- 


30 THE ULTIMATE QUEST 

imical to the full development of human per¬ 
sonality ? 

6. Will you find any of the same conditions in 
Japan? Ref. Working Women of Japan, Gulick. 

7. Do you believe that “All mankind is seeking 
God”? 

8. If you lived in India, would you rather 
work in a factory or live in purdah ? 

9. Do you feel that the women of the Orient 
have made any advance toward a full and abun¬ 
dant life? 

10. What have been the chief factors in bring¬ 
ing this about? 


















» 














. 




























‘ 






















































































































4 



























































How far can you reach? 
There are 

Students 

in every land 
waiting to join hands 
with you 

to unite the world 
in 

Fellowship 


Bearers of the Torch 
Poster graph IV 



CHAPTER FOUR 


BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
you free . 11 

—John 8: 32. 

The Students of the Ages 

Glowing down through the centuries, a torch has 
been borne aloft in hands yellow and black and 
brown, alluring and guiding the searchers in many 
lands and many climes. 

The Chinese youth studied the precepts of Con¬ 
fucius ; the Greeks gathered around Plato that they 
might hear his philosophy; a goodly company of 
humble folk listened at the feet of the man of Gali¬ 
lee. So it was in the past, and so it is to-day. From 
village and city the youth of the United States, of 
the Orient, of the South American republics, of 
Europe, wend their way in unnumbered thousands 
to colleges and universities. In garb varying from 
the loose robe of the Oriental to the latest dictate 
of Western fashion; in language denoting the 
tongues of the earth; in custom encircling the globe, 
they come, all answering the same call, all touching 
hands in a common purpose. And the golden word 
trumpeted in that call and expressed in that pur¬ 
pose is “Service.” 


34 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


The Student in India 

In far-away India, timid women enter the gov¬ 
ernment universities, forsaking custom and tra¬ 
dition, and submitting themselves to petty perse¬ 
cutions, and even moral dangers, that they may be 
equipped to teach that part of the womanhood of 
India just venturing out of the seclusion of purdah. 
They matriculate at the medical colleges of Vellore 
and Ludhiana in order to minister to the suffering 
bodies of that great company of women who because 
of purdah can never be seen by a man physician. 

The Mohammedan Student 

Down Bookseller’s Lane in Cairo, twenty thou¬ 
sand Mohammedan youths wander annually to El 
Azhar, a university with nine hundred and forty- 
one years of history behind it. Here they are 
taught that the world is flat; here they learn the 
sacred books of the Koran, and absorb a fanaticism 
that sends them out as zealous missionaries to re¬ 
cruit followers for Mohammed. The aspiration 
in the hearts of these Mohammedan youths is the 
same as that which sends our Western students to 
college and university. If to our thinking they find 
in their search for truth only a grotesque falsifica¬ 
tion, the fact remains that they give themselves in 
ardent devotion to the cause they believe to be 
right. Imagine the illimitable possibilities of the 
zeal and fire of these Mohammedan students if they 
were turned towards the true and living God! 


BEARERS OF THE TORCH 


35 


The Student Movement in China 
In no other place in the world is the influence of 
a student body more potent than in China to-day. 
In the heart of the Chinese student burn a patriot¬ 
ism and desire to serve, which find direct expression 
in the Chinese Students’ Patriotic Society. When 
the first draft of the Peace Treaty was published, 
twenty thousand students, eight thousand of them 
girls, banded themselves together to fight for Chi¬ 
nese rights. They made a number of demands, the 
first of which was that the militarist party which 
they felt to be pro-Japanese should be put out of 
office. These students translated quantities of lit¬ 
erature into the new phonetic script of China, and 
distributed it widely in order that the uneducated 
people might know what was taking place. They 
spoke in towns and villages everywhere, inciting 
the inhabitants to patriotism. The business men 
and workers of the nation supported the students 
so that in the end, in June, 1919, there was a gen¬ 
eral strike lasting a week. Then the militarist 
party found itself out of power. The hope of the 
struggling Chinese republic is in her students, if 
their passion for service can be guided into chan¬ 
nels that will serve, not only the political interests 
of their country, but will abolish ignorance, super¬ 
stition and disease, and make of China a Christian 
nation. Mr. Tyler Dennett in a forthcoming book 
says: “When Christianity is restored to the 
Orient from which it came, it uncovers energies 


36 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


and vitalities such as were characteristic of the 
Apostolic days. When the Oriental becomes an 
evangelical Christian, he is likely to become a very 
superior one, fearless, uncompromising, a martyr to 
death as so many of them have been, or a martyr 
to daily persecution. ’ ’ 

Among South American Students 

Indicative of the situation among South Ameri¬ 
can students is the ever increasing number swing¬ 
ing away from the church and boasting of their 
agnosticism. Yet many of these young Latin Amer¬ 
icans would give themselves with a splendid aban¬ 
don to a program of economic and political reforms. 
Miss Bertha Conde tells of a lecture given in the 
oldest university of the Americas, at Lima, Peru, 
during her visit to that city in 1919. The lecturer, 
Dr. Pelacios of Buenos Aires, a socialist and a free¬ 
thinker, gave a talk on social justice before a dis¬ 
tinguished audience, in which he based his remarks 
on sayings of the prophets and the life and teach¬ 
ings of Jesus Christ. How thin the veil! Could 
they but pierce it and find the light! 

The Situation among North American Students 

In the United States with the coming of full po¬ 
litical rights to all its citizens, the scope of social 
service is visibly widening. Colleges and univer¬ 
sities are trimming their sails to the wind, and en- 


BEARERS OF THE TORCH 


37 


larging and adapting their curricula to meet the 
new trends in social thinking. With the girl of 
wealth taking training that she may properly meet 
her responsibilities; with the world’s store of 
knowledge enriched by the help of the patient, 
meticulous research of women; with vast numbers 
of students deeply conscious of the disease, the 
ignorance, the sin of humankind, and longing to 
spend themselves in serving world needs; with all 
of this potential power, great things can be accom¬ 
plished. And if the Western world has journeyed 
a little farther, a little faster than the East, if its 
torches burn a bit more clearly, it is because of the 
acceptance of Jesus Christ, whose teachings are the 
essence of brotherhood. 

The Foreign Student in the United States 
The years immediately following the war find the 
foreign students, many of whom would under ordi¬ 
nary circumstances attend the Continental univer¬ 
sities, congregating in the United States. In 1919, 
five thousand of them were enrolled in our normal 
schools, colleges and universities. Why have they 
broken caste and family ties to endure such loneli¬ 
ness? Why have they crossed seas and deserts? 
Steadfastly burning in their souls is the common 
desire to find that elusive, fragile, indefinable some¬ 
thing that will lift mankind from its morass. Can 
these students find their desire in the United 
States ? 


38 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


Beading References 

The Case of China, The Outlook , June 25,1919. 
Understanding South America, Chapters 
Twenty-four and Twenty-five. 

Working Women of the Orient, pp. 90 and 91, 
97 and 98. 

Democratic Movement in Asia, Chapter Five. 
Butterflies and Snow, World Outlook, September, 
1919. 


Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. List the reasons which take an American 
girl to college. 

2. How many of these same reasons animated 
our foreign students? 

3. What traits are characteristic of students 
the world over? 

4. Discuss the significance of the student move¬ 
ment in China. Ref. The National Awakening in 
China, The New Republic, August 6, 1919. 

5. What possibilities can you see in the new 
phonetic script of China? Ref. Asia, November, 
1919. 

6. Why should agnosticism be prevalent among 
the students of the University of Tokyo? 

7. What are the greatest needs of the South 
American students? Ref. The South American 
Universities. The Student World, October, 1919. 

8. Name some of the difficulties a girl encoun- 


BEARERS OF THE TORCH 39 

ters in entering” one of the government universities 
of India. Ref. The New Women of India, World 
Outlook , November, 1919. 

9. What influence has the Protestant college 
at Beirut had upon the people of Syria? Ref. An 
Interview with Prince Feisal, The Outlook , April 2, 
1919. 

10. What does North America owe the foreign 
student ? Why ? 

11. What lines of thought are universally cur¬ 
rent among students to-day ? 

12. Discuss a program to which all students, re¬ 
gardless of race, could subscribe. 


Are you independent? 

Women 
of every nation 
toil 

to serve you 

Does money 
pay 

your debt to them? 


Women Who Work 
Postergraph V 



CHAPTER FIVE 


WOMEN WHO WORK 


“But knowledge is easy unto him that hath understand¬ 
ing/’ 


—Proverbs 14: 6. 


The Advance of Industry 

The smoke that for generations hung cloudlike 
above the factories of Europe and North America, 
with the pale faces of men, women and children 
peering dimly through its gray haze, has recently 
spread like a pall over the Far East and South 
America, obscuring in its mists the beauty of great 
cities, the loveliness of mountain and plain, the 
picturesque quality of agricultural peoples. 
Through this industrial fog that has so rapidly en¬ 
veloped them, the people move blindly, rudderless, 
with the old familiar past left far behind, the pres¬ 
ent terrifying in its complexities, the future un¬ 
known. Yet back of the pillar of smoke that 
enshrouds and bewilders the industrial women of 
the world, glows a divine fire that, were we to 
understand the formula, could transmute all the 
pain and the misunderstanding and the suffering 
into the shining gold of the sanctity of life, and the 
strength and sweetness of human relationships. 


42 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


If the world could know the secret of this divine 
alchemy, how beautiful life would be! 

Seeking the Interpretation 

Many times in his matchless teachings the man 
of Nazareth, had we but ears to hear, and hearts to 
understand, has spoken the magic words that would 
fuse all mankind into one great brotherhood. That 
certain great souls have caught his transforming 
words and are endeavoring to interpret them in 
terms of daily living to millions of people, yellow 
and black and white, is a reassurance that there is 
a Christian answer to the complicated questions of 
our modern life. 

The Interdependence of Workers 
As a result of these first hesitant steps along the 
path of understanding, women are becoming in¬ 
creasingly conscious of their interdependence as 
workers. That low wages and long hours in Japan 
ultimately affect wages and hours in Paterson, New 
Jersey, that child labor in China and India has its 
inevitable reaction in the United States, that un¬ 
healthful living conditions for the factory girls of 
the Argentine is a condition whose results have 
wide application, shows how inextricably the world 
is bound up together. Industrial problems are the 
same, East or West, North or South, and no one 
nation of workers can solve its difficulties without 
considering the workers of every other nation. 


WOMEN WHO WORK 


43 


When one thinks of the times a North American 
industrial worker hesitates and falters at the prob¬ 
lems she faces, equipped as she is with the experi¬ 
ence bequeathed to her through several generations 
of workers—what, then, of the situation of the 
workers of other lands, thrust suddenly from cen¬ 
turies of seclusion into the din and confusion of the 
factory, with no experience, no standard, no guide 
to prepare them for the magnitude of the task con¬ 
fronting them ? The Western world has a great re¬ 
sponsibility toward the industrial situation in the 
Orient and South America. Mr. Dennett says: 
“The exploitation of women and children, the 
growth of congested cities, long hours, insanitary 
conditions of employment, and kindred evils are 
creating a new set of social and economic problems 
which the East is quite unprepared to solve without 
help.” Profiting by her own blunders, the United 
States, by the force of example and through 
friendly cooperation, can help these newer indus¬ 
trial nations to order their economic life so that it 
will reflect, in every phase, consideration for human 
welfare and happiness. 

The Factory in South America 
Until the war the home factory, or the 11 dispersed 
factory” as it is called in the Argentine, was 
woman’s greatest share in the industrial life of the 
country; but with the tremendous expansion of the 
meat-packing industry and the curtailment of ex- 


44 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


ports from Europe, South Americans found them¬ 
selves in the position of doing without certain com¬ 
modities, or manufacturing these articles them¬ 
selves. As a result, numerous factories sprang up 
like mushroom growths, and thousands of women 
flocked to their doors. So successful has been this 
invasion that an increasing demand for women’s 
labor exists in the Argentine. 

When one knows that South America is a country 
where boarding-houses are an almost unknown 
quantity, where it is not seemly for a woman to 
appear unchaperoned upon the streets, where real 
moral dangers attend this free intermingling of the 
sexes, when one knows that the Moorish idea of 
seclusion underlies all Latin-American tradition, 
it can readily be seen that in this exodus into a new 
life without adequate preparation, a very real and 
acute problem confronts the Argentinian Republic. 
Significant of the increasing interest the public is 
taking in labor questions, is the legislation for safe¬ 
guarding the interests and lives of women in in¬ 
dustry. The great discrepancy that has existed be¬ 
tween the wages of men and women, the long hours 
and insanitary conditions of homework, are ques¬ 
tions included in bills, some of which have recently 
become laws, and others of which are still awaiting 
action by the Parliament of the Argentine. 

Workers in the Orient 

China, India and Japan are emerging from cen- 


WOMEN WHO WORK 


45 


turies of household production and are rapidly fill¬ 
ing factories. Great Chinese cities echo with the 
hurrying feet of thousands of workers, who have 
stumbled in the gray dawn to mill and factory. 
Again at nightfall, for the working day is a long 
one in the East, tired women, some of them trun¬ 
dled in wheelbarrows because of their bound feet, 
turn homeward, but little richer for the day’s 
toil. In Shanghai alone, thirty thousand women 
and girls have come in from the surrounding coun¬ 
try to work in factories. 

Japan’s great army of workers is also recruited 
from the agricultural districts, thousands of girls 
being lured annually to the great industrial cities 
by tales of the wonders of city life, and the good 
wages to be earned in the factories and mills. A 
dormitory system prevails in Japan, and so large 
a proportion of her wages goes to pay for her food 
and lodging, that the worker has only a few yen 
left at the end of the month. Add to this the fact 
that these girls work in two twelve-hour shifts, one 
set of girls tumbling exhausted into beds still warm 
from their former occupants, the other shift, and 
one can see how ripe a field tuberculosis has here 
for its dread work. One reason given for the in¬ 
feriority of many Japanese products is that they 
are made by the fumbling fingers of exhausted girls. 
Many thousands of girls, disheartened and dis¬ 
couraged by the long hours of work, the system of 
fines and punishments, the lack of safety devices in 


46 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


their work, the dearth of recreation, never return 
home, but wander forth to be lost in the great 
underworld. 

Many of the industrial conditions of the East are 
not the result of a deliberate policy of exploitation 
so much as they are a composite product of the 
ignorance of employers new to the factory system, 
and the Oriental attitude toward woman as a beast 
of burden. That the factory can be an instrument, 
not only for developing the economic resources of 
a country, but for the Christianizing of the com¬ 
munity as well, is evidenced by the fact that there 
are a number of mill owners in Japan who main¬ 
tain in their factories a situation approaching the 
ideal. Such are the Kanegajuchi and Fuji Com¬ 
panies. These firms are shining examples to their 
countrymen of the fact that financial success and 
Christian living can advance hand in hand. 

Christian Factories 

The famous Gunze Seishi Kwaisha silk factory 
has so high a standard of working and living con¬ 
ditions for its employees, that the tone of the whole 
district is affected. It is the only silk firm in Japan 
whose product is of so fine a quality that it is 
shipped directly to the United States without in¬ 
spection at Yokohama. Dr. Gulick says in “Work¬ 
ing Women of Japan”: “The Christian Gunze 
Seishi Kwaisha is one of the splendid exceptions 
which show what Japanese workmen and manu- 


WOMEN WHO WORK 


47 


facturers can do when controlled by high ideals 
and motives. ’’ 

In the consideration of the industrial evils of the 
Far East it would be well for the United States to 
remember how short a time ago, both in Great 
Britain and North America, women worked from 
twelve to fifteen hours a day; how children of five 
and six were commonly employed, being used in 
mines where horses and mules could not go. Even 
to-day industrial conditions prevail from which we 
turn in shame; but the Western world has traveled 
a long way toward making the factory a place, not 
only for men and women to earn their livelihood, 
but to develop themselves as human personalities. 
The Cadbury chocolate factory in England is such 
a place. Girls and women in the most ideal sur¬ 
roundings, and under the most auspicious working 
conditions, dip and pack chocolates that are real 
messengers of the kind of Christian living possible 
when employers and employees work together in 
amity! 

The International Labor Conferences 

Significant of a very real desire to find an inter¬ 
national basis of understanding was the gathering 
in the city of Washington, in the fall of 1919, of 
two International Labor Congresses, one of men 
and one of women. The First International Con¬ 
gress for Working Women was called by the 
Woman’s Trade Union League of America, to meet 


48 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


the week preceding the opening of the men’s con¬ 
ference. Because the items on the agenda of the 
men’s conference intimately concerned working 
women, and because only joint action on the part 
of the working women of the world could promote 
industrial justice, representatives of twenty-one 
nations met to draft resolutions that would safe¬ 
guard the lives of women and children in industry. 
With the deepest conviction, these women plighted 
their mutual faith for an international program of 
a shorter working day for men and women, the 
abolishment of child labor, the reduction of night 
work, the elimination as far as possible of unhealthy 
processes in manufacturing, the protection of 
mothers before and after childbirth, and the pre¬ 
vention and providing against unemployment. 
These problems, affecting all countries alike, and 
discussed with steadfast earnestness in many 
tongues by Belgians, Japanese, Poles, Italians and 
those of many other races, gave the spectator a 
thrilling sense of the reality of the right kind of 
world fellowship. 

The International Labor Congress was provided 
for in the terms of the Peace Treaty. With distin¬ 
guished men as representatives from the various 
governments, from the employers and from labor 
groups, with special advisers and interpreters, these 
representatives of the nations of the world sat in 
the stately hall of the Pan-American Union, itself 
an epitome of the understanding and friendship be- 


WOMEN WHO WORK 


49 


tween two continents, to discuss, to sift, to study, 
and if might be to come to some conclusions that 
would affect the happiness and well-being of the 
whole human race. 

One felt in gazing upon this momentous scene a 
tremendous sense of the oneness of mankind: tur¬ 
ban-crowned Mohammedans, dusky Africans, in¬ 
telligent Orientals, statesmanlike Englishmen, 
courteous Latins—alien, pagan, Jew, they were en¬ 
grossed in the same problems, and striving for a 
common solution. 

Traditions, customs, religions, all play their part 
in complicating an international solution to indus¬ 
trial and economic questions, and only as the West 
endeavors to learn these, to get the point of view 
of Oriental and Occidental alike, to respect the tra¬ 
ditions of each, in short, only as the West realizes 
its kinship with the rest of the world, realizes that 
our likenesses are greater than our differences, will 
we journey far as interpreters of the teachings of 
Jesus Christ. 

Reading References 

Working Women of the Orient, Chapter Two. 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Chapter 
Eight. 

The Land of Narikin and Rice Riots, World Out¬ 
look, January, 1919. 

Working Women of Japan, Gulick, Chapter 
Nine. 


50 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. Compare the life of a factory girl in the 
United States with that of a girl similarly employed 
in Japan. Ref. Working Women of the Orient, 
pp. 54-70. 

2. List the ways in which the factory workers 
of Japan minister to you; of China, of India, of 
South America. 

3. Compare the method of a factory housing 
its workers, as in Japan, with that of a worker re¬ 
ceiving enough wages to rent her own lodging, as 
in the United States. 

4. How could the low wages and long hours of 
workers in India affect the wages and hours of a 
worker in the United States? 

5. How does the legislation regarding factory 
workers in your State compare with that of Japan? 
Ref. Working Women of Japan, pp. 72-73. 

6. What is the attitude of the Japanese gov¬ 
ernment toward labor unions? Ref. The Demo¬ 
cratic Movement in Asia, pp. 170-171. 

7. Discuss what you can do as Christians to 
help remedy the industrial evils affecting girls in 
the Orient. 

8. List the changes that the present industrial 
development has made in the lives of the women of 
the Orient. 

9. Discuss the significance of the first Inter¬ 
national Labor Congress. 









V 







Will you help 
to free 

the women of the world 
from 

bonds of the past? 

Look! 

New doors of service 
open 

Women’s Work for Women 
Poster graph VI 



CHAPTER SIX 


WOMAN’S WORK FOR WOMEN 

“Feminism is woman’s longing, translated into action, 
to escape the burden of inferiority imposed on her by ir¬ 
rational tyrannies and social injustice.” 

—Elizabeth C. Northup. 

The Changing Status of Woman 

The old city wall of Canton, which for more than 
two thousand years stood solid, massive, immov¬ 
able, typical of the unchanging quality of Chinese 
life through the centuries, is at last being razed to 
the ground, so that a great highway may run its 
course along the space thus gained. This wall, a 
monument to the uncounted thousands of lives 
sacrificed to its building, already old when the Star 
was seen over Judean hills, withstanding in its 
proud strength the onslaughts of marauding 
pirates, this wall under whose frowning heights 
strange happenings have taken place,—the murder 
of baby girls, uprisings, revolutions, swift and ter¬ 
rible punishments,—this wall, grim, forbidding, 
for centuries as unchanging as the sky, is now torn 
down! The earth, which for two thousand years 
slumbered under the great wall, is suddenly awake 
and giving itself for a great highway teeming with 
life! If this road, born of the bitter past, should 


54 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


pulse with the new life of awakened China, and 
echo with the light tread of unfettered feet, with 
the happy voices of women and children freed from 
the tyrannies of the past, if there should be light 
where there was darkness, this will be a happy por¬ 
tent for the new China. 

Not only walls of stone, but the walls of the social 
fabric as well, are beginning to crumble in China, 
India, Japan and South America. Apertures have 
appeared as if by magic through which are peering 
the adventurous spirits of women—high caste Hin¬ 
dus, haughty Castilians, Chinese, Japanese, an 
advance guard, eager to use their new-found 
strength in demolishing the already tottering wall 
and freeing the thousands of degraded women 
crouching behind its gloomy shelter. 

Thoughtful people remind us that any sudden 
freedom coming to women, who have been sheltered 
through so many generations, would be rash and ill 
advised, much as the precipitation of the Oriental 
woman into industry without adequate preparation 
has brought upon her patient head a shower of extra 
burdens. The women of India, living in purdah, 
must have patient education and a gradual loosen¬ 
ing of the bonds that keep them in tragic isolation, 
far from the beauty and fulness of life. In “The 
Democratic Movement in Asia,” Tyler Dennett 
quotes the late William McElroy Curtis as saying 
that the greatest forces in emancipating the women 
of the harems were French novels and Christian 


WOMAN’S WORK FOR WOMEN 


55 


missions. The eager response of these women to 
the missionary teacher is the surest indication of 
the latent desires and longings flooding their 
starved hearts. The woman movement in Oriental 
countries needs wise guidance, in order that in the 
new freedom beckoning to them with bright arrays 
of gifts, they may choose, not the cheap and super¬ 
ficial evidences of Western civilization, but those 
things that will truly satisfy and endure. 

The Need for Wise Leadership 

Distinguished leaders of this calibre are appear¬ 
ing on the horizon of every country. India has her 
Sarojini Naidu, whose sheaf of exquisite poems has 
stirred the hearts of East and West alike. She has 
many women teachers who are doing splendid self- 
sacrificing work for the childhood of India. She 
has the great social worker Pandita Ramabai, whose 
effort in behalf of the child widows of India has 
been one of the shining spots in Indian history. 
India has many other noble women—editors, writ¬ 
ers, physicians, who because of their espousal of the 
cause of women are silhouetted in almost solitary 
splendor against the vast background of the mil¬ 
lions of women still “suffering from irrational 
tyrannies and social injustice.” 

China’s New Day 

That the women of China are now adrift on un¬ 
charted seas of new experiences, swept hither and 
yon by strange currents from the Western hemi- 


56 THE ULTIMATE QUEST 

sphere, in grave danger of being dashed to death 
upon the rocks, is a matter, not only for apprehen¬ 
sion, but one for hope as well. In their efforts to 
adopt Western ideas and to flaunt their new sense 
of independence, the Chinese woman has made 
some pathetic mistakes; but at the crux of the situ¬ 
ation is her longing to swing wide of the cruel past. 
That she is awake and alive to her situation is the 
salient point. 

China’s anti-foot-binding crusade and her decla¬ 
ration of war against concubines show the trend of 
woman’s effort that is destined to heal China of 
some of the festering sores of her ancient civiliza¬ 
tion. In her splendid women physicians with many 
of whose names we are familiar,—Dr. Mary Stone, 
Dr. Ida Kahn and Dr. Li Bi Cu,—in her group of 
teachers and returned students, filled with the de¬ 
sire for service, China has her greatest asset for the 
future. 

The Contribution of Women in Japan 

The business acumen of Japanese women has be¬ 
come a proverb. Madame Suzuki, during the war, 
made one hundred millions of dollars in one trans¬ 
action. Madame Hirooka, famous during her life¬ 
time as a financier, was also a brilliant example of 
this. That both of them believed in women and 
their ultimate freedom from the tyranny of the past 
centuries, branded them true feminists. 

Japan has her brilliant doctors, such as Dr. 


WOMAN’S WORK FOR WOMEN 57 

Yoshioka, who has received her education entirely 
in her own country, and whose hospitals and schools 
are among the most successful in Japan, and Dr. 
Tnouye, whose sanity and vision of the needs of her 
countrywomen impressed all who met her during 
her recent visit to the United States as a delegate to 
the International Conference of Women Physicians. 

Japan has her social reformer, Madame Yajami; 
she has her great Christian leaders, Miss Kawai and 
Miss Tsuda. She has many others seeking to guide 
the women whose eyes, used to darkness, are 
blinded by the sudden rush of light betokening a 
new day in Japan. 

South American Feminists 

Long ago South American women gave evidences 
of their courage and high spirit of patriotism when 
they said to their husbands and sons, returning 
vanquished from battle: “Go and conquer. It is 
only as victors that we will receive you. ’ ’ This in¬ 
domitable spirit, latent through many years because 
of the strength of Latin-American tradition, again 
found expression in a woman’s project to cement a 
lasting peace between Chili and the Argentine by 
placing the statue of “The Christ of the Andes,” 
made from the molten metal of discarded cannon, 
upon the boundary line of the two countries. The 
spirit that found fruitage in such deeds as these is 
everywhere astir in South America. In Buenos 
Aires, Montevideo and Santiago, are many women 


58 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


whose hearts are burning with a love of humanity. 
Magazine writers, physicians, professors—they are 
a brilliant array, boasting, alas! of their separation 
from the church, but trying in the only way they 
know to right social injustices. 

The Democratic Movement among Women 

That the war has given a great impetus to the 
woman movement the world over, and has set in 
motion forces beyond our power to analyze or con¬ 
trol, is evidenced by the lives of thousands of 
women lifted out of themselves into a world move¬ 
ment, sacrificing for a world cause: women tasting, 
many of them for the first time, the wine of eco¬ 
nomic independence and finding it sweet, women 
stepping out over the threshold, to become trail 
makers! These pioneering women have shaken ‘ ‘ the 
things that can be shaken in order that the things 
which cannot be shaken may remain”! The things 
they are loosening from their age-old moorings are 
the sufferings, the tyrannies, the injustices, which 
have inhibited and suppressed the spiritual life of 
women; and the things which cannot be shaken are 
expressed in the Master’s words, “I am come that 
they might have life, and that they might have it 
abundantly. ’ ’ 

Beading References 

Understanding South America, Chapter Twenty- 
Three. 


WOMAN’S WORK FOR WOMEN 


59 


The Democratic Movement in Asia, Chapter 
Seven. 

Working Women of the Orient, Chapters Four 
and Five. 

The New Woman of India, World Outlook , No¬ 
vember, 1916. 

The War Came to India Bringing Gifts, World 
Outlook , March, 1919. 

The Iron Woman of Japan, World Outlook, Sep¬ 
tember, 1917. 


Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. Discuss what part women have played in the 
great reforms of the past generation. 

2. What has been woman’s contribution to the 
spread of the democratic movement? 

3. What characteristics do great women show 
as a group ? 

4. Are women naturally democratic? Discuss 
this. 

5. What do you see as woman’s part in the re¬ 
construction era? 

6. Whom would you class among the great 
feminists of the United States? Of China? India? 
Japan ? Ref. Working Women of the Orient, Chap¬ 
ters Four and Five. 

7. Which women are the most advanced among 
the Oriental nations? What has made them so? 


60 THE ULTIMATE QUEST 

Ref. The Democratic Movement in Asia, pp. 143- 
145. 

8. Discuss whether the women of the Orient 
and South America are prepared for the new day 
dawning in those countries. 

9. What part do missions play in a feminist 
movement ? 

10. Is the furthering of the woman movement 
throughout the world promoting the program of 
Jesus Christ? 




































































Have you discovered God 
as 

the source of all human 

sacrifice 

and 

achievement? 


God in Human Achievement 
Foster graph VII 



CHAPTER SEVEN 


GOD IN HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT 

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firma¬ 
ment showeth his handiwork.’’ 

—Psalm 19: 1. 

The Discovery of God in Nature 

A glimpse of a lofty mountain peak appearing 
first in nebulous form and gradually assuming a 
dreamlike splendor as it floats in silvery whiteness 
and black shadows into one’s consciousness—a glint 
of green in the springtime, rich with the promise of 
resurrection—the scent of new-mown hay heavy 
with the fragrance of the gifts of the field—the sky¬ 
line of a great city against a stormy evening sun¬ 
set—the stirring notes of organ music crashing 
through the quiet of a great cathedral—and flooding 
into the heart come a consciousness of God, a sense 
of communion with Him that sweeps the soul bare 
of all its trivial and petty strivings, of its ugly and 
sordid trappings. 

There is a fantastic tale somewhere of a creature 
who, having lived in the bowels of the earth all the 
years of his existence, was at last freed from his 
slavery and taken out just before dawn to the top 
of a mountain. As the sky in the east paled and 
then reddened, and up through its roseate glow the 


64 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


majestic sun appeared in burning splendor—the 
slave, brought too suddenly into consciousness of 
the beauty and glory of God, fell upon his face and 
died. Even to those accustomed to the manifesta¬ 
tions of the wonders of God comes at such times an 
emotion overwhelming in its intensity, when the 
issues of right and wrong are marked by a sharp 
line of cleavage; a sense of perspective emerges 
which makes the values of life clear and unmistak¬ 
able; there is room only for beauty and goodness 
and purity. It is only when, the moment of exal¬ 
tation past, one descends into the monotony of daily 
tasks fretted with human limitations and human 
failings, that it is hard to keep one’s vision intact. 
It is easy to discover God in the glory of a sunset 
or the majesty of a storm at sea, but to find God at 
the factory loom in the heat and weariness of a 
day’s toil; to find God in a world where millions of 
people go to bed hungry every night, where chil¬ 
dren die like flowers before a frost, because of igno¬ 
rance and superstition and evil; to find God in a 
world torn with strife and bitter with the after- 
math of war, calls upon all one’s resources of spirit¬ 
ual equipment. 

God Working through Human Achievement 

If we have the faith to pierce through our doubt 
and discouragement and search the pages of science, 
we shall discover God in the wonders of human 
achievement: a human achievement that has caused 


GOD IN HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT 


65 


the desert places of the globe to blossom with life; 
that has made habitable portions of the earth cursed 
for generations by continuous epidemics; that has 
built ships which ply like shuttles between nations, 
weaving together the fabric of international friend¬ 
ships; that has created giant airplanes which have 
conquered time and annihilated distance, which fly 
like swift emissaries of God bearing a message of a 
closer communion and a knitting together of the 
interests of the races of the world; that has given to 
the world great inventions for the reduction of hu¬ 
man labor and the safeguarding of its operation; 
that has discovered marvelous ways of easing hu¬ 
man suffering and abolishing disease. 

It is the physician armed with all the help that 
science can give, who carries the message of a lov¬ 
ing Christ to the sick and suffering women and 
children of other lands, in a way best calculated to 
reach them. A tender, sorrowing Christ expressed 
in terms of relieving their suffering is something 
that can be made tangible to them. In ‘ ‘ The Marks 
of a World Christian,” Daniel Johnson Fleming 
tells the story of Dr. Eleanor Chestnut who, stand¬ 
ing upon the temple steps awaiting her turn at 
death from the mob who had murdered her fellow 
missionaries, noticed a little boy in the crowd with 
a deep wound in his head. She had just time to 
tear off a piece of her skirt and bind up the wound 
before the mob stabbed her and threw her body into 
the river. 


66 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


The missionary doctor has a wide field and the 
scope of her work is limitless, for she gets a hearing 
among the afflicted and has, through her science, the 
opportunity first to demonstrate the love of God 
and then apply it. Mr. Dennett makes the state¬ 
ment that the world production of food, raw ma¬ 
terials and manufactured products, is not more 
than half what it would be if the health of the back¬ 
ward races, which comprise roughly two-thirds of 
the population, could be lifted to the health of the 
other third. 

Modern Workers of Miracles 

Sam Higginbottom in India and Joseph Bail- 
lie in China are two men who are interpreting God 
through the terms of science. Higginbottom, find¬ 
ing that in his section of India, only eighty pounds 
of cotton were produced to the acre where the 
United States had two hundred pounds and Egypt 
four hundred, went to an agricultural school and 
learned how to raise cotton and other products suit¬ 
able to the soil of his province. So splendid have 
been the results of his experiments with soils and 
fertilization that the state of Gwalior has asked for 
him as government director of agriculture. Wide 
in its application is this teaching of agriculture in 
which God is discovered leading the people of 
India towards a greater economic independence. 

Joseph Baillie has taught the Chinese to plant 
trees. Realizing that reforestation was the only 


GOD IN HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT 


67 


way to prevent floods and make available for agri¬ 
culture vast stretches of waste lands, Joseph Bail- 
lie, overcoming incredible difficulties of supersti¬ 
tion, for much of this vast land was inhabited by 
Chinese dead, so enthused the people of his com¬ 
munity that tree planting has become a regular pas¬ 
time. Arbor Day is now being observed in many 
Chinese cities. With other methods—of rice grow¬ 
ing, of using modern farm implements to replace 
the primitive customs of earlier generations—mis¬ 
sionaries are, in a practical way, bulwarking the re¬ 
ligion of Jesus Christ. 

Science and Invention Are God’s Handmaidens 

The invention of the printing press opened a new 
gate of friendship and understanding between the 
nations through which the literature of the world 
has poured, East and West, like golden fragments. 
The West became conscious of the beauty, the mys¬ 
tery, the glamour, the aesthetic and worshipful qual¬ 
ities of the Orient; the East learned the sturdy in¬ 
dependence, the love of liberty, and the democratic 
spirit which characterize the Occidental. 

Mr. Earl Taylor, in “The Christian Crusade for 
World Democracy ,’’ says, “It has long been a com¬ 
monplace that steam and electricity have made the 
world a neighborhood. ’ ’ Electricity flashes around 
the earth words of good will, news of great catas¬ 
trophes, messages of commerce through which finan¬ 
ciers keep their fingers on the pulse of the world. 


68 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


Steam dots great oceans and rivers with ships fly¬ 
ing many flags—bearing their cargoes of offerings 
—exchanging, buying, selling. North America de¬ 
pendent in a large measure on South America for 
her nitrates, given curiously enough from a barren 
country, which out of its sterile depths fertilizes 
much of the world! South America dependent on 
the United States for her machinery—created out 
of the mathematical brain of the North American! 
Each dependent on the other for her economic de¬ 
velopment! The channels of trade, of commerce, 
are God's channels for working his purpose out. 

An old lady who had witnessed the passage of the 
first steamship up the Hudson, who had watched 
the strange snorting of the early locomotives, stood 
out on a lawn and looked silently at a great airship 
circling majestically over her head. As she fol¬ 
lowed the progress of the giant plane, whirring 
with incredible swiftness up—up—until it disap¬ 
peared into the infinity of space, she turned and 
with tears streaming down her withered face mur¬ 
mured brokenly: “Take me in. I can stand no 
more. I have witnessed the glory of God. ’ 7 

Reading References 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Chapters 
Five, Six and Eight. 

Understanding South America, Chapter Twenty- 
six. 

The Wonder Tale of Some Trees and an Irish¬ 
man, World Outlook, September, 1918. 


GOD IN HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT 69 

Progress through Industrial Schools, World Out¬ 
look, January, 1919. 

Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. When do you feel nearest to God? Why? 

2. What is your definition of prayer ? 

3. Do you think we are living up to the ideal of 
beauty which God has given us ? 

4. In what great inventions can you trace the 
advancement of God's kingdom? 

5. How can a business man be an emissary of 
God? 

6. In what world movements can you discover 
God? 


Where do you live? 

In 

village or city 
Asia or America 
community problems 
demand 
the thought 
of 
All 


The Art of Living Together 
Poster graph VIII 



CHAPTER EIGHT 
THE ART OF LIVING TOGETHER 

t( There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither 
bond nor free, there can be no male and female: for ye all 
are one man in Christ Jesus. ” 

—Galatians 3: 28. 


Children of One Family 

Though the great family of God, created with 
kindred spiritual desires, with the physical needs 
of hunger and thirst and shelter, with a love of play 
inherent in the human breast—with a gregarious 
instinct that finds its outlet in group living, has, 
during the passage of thousands of years, scattered 
to the four ends of the earth and taken unto itself 
divers ways and customs, it has not altered one jot 
or tittle in these fundamental physical require¬ 
ments. 

The Beginning of the Community 

In far-off, almost forgotten times, men and women 
sought shelter in trees or caves, killing, with the 
naked hands or with crude implements, whenever 
the pangs of hunger assailed them, and slaking 
their thirst in forest pools. As the centuries drifted 
by, the nomad lighted his desert fire, pitched his 


72 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


tent of skins for shelter, and with his knife sacri¬ 
ficed an animal to his hunger. And because of the 
group instinct and the need of protection that only 
the group could give, families gathered together in 
small companies, bound by common interests and 
common problems. The tribe, the clan, the com¬ 
munity, thus came into being. 

Community Problems of Yesterday 
What were the problems that perplexed and com¬ 
plicated the patriarchal life of yesterday? Because 
people must work in order to have food and shelter, 
and because some refused to work, there soon arose 
the problem of the drone, the ne ’er-do-well; and as 
an offshoot of this, the beggar of alms. Because of 
the ever conflicting forces of good and evil, the 
problem of vice entered the community. When 
harvests failed and droughts came, charity arrived 
to care for the weak and helpless. When, work 
done, tired bodies sought relaxation and rest— 
recreation presented itself for community con¬ 
sideration. The old men by the fire, viewing from 
the vantage point of age the conquests, the tri¬ 
umphs, the sorrows of the tribe, held forth in song 
and story to the children of the group that they 
might know its traditions. Thus education with 
its attendant handmaidens started a train of prob¬ 
lems. Thrilled by the glory of the heavens at night, 
awed by the wonders of the phenomena of Nature, 
the sense of worship slumbering in the hearts of 


THE ART OF LIVING TOGETHER 73 

the people awoke and religion began its many 
forms of expressions. 

Community Problems To-Day 

What are the problems that beset any community 
to-day ? Whether the inhabitants are turban- 
crowned Hindus or New Englanders—whether the 
houses are straw-thatched huts, blistering in the 
heat of India, or gray-timbered cottages shaking in 
the icy blasts of a New England winter—whether 
they worship Krishna or Christ—their problems 
are the problems of yesterday and in essentials are 
the same East or West. 

The beggar is a beggar the world over, though 
the mantle of Oriental charity assumes a different 
hue from the Occidental garment. Five million re¬ 
ligious mendicants sit by the roadside in India, 
holding their bowls into which the people, in order 
to gain merit, put alms. Five million able-bodied 
men taken out of the producing capacity of India! 
No wonder a thoughtful Hindu said he wished for 
India to become Christian, and when asked why re¬ 
plied, “Because it costs so little!’' Though once 
even in New England villages, the lady bountiful 
fared forth with laden basket upon her arm to feed 
the poor in much the same fashion as in India, now 
Western ideas of charity have changed; people are 
helped by being taught to help themselves, and sen¬ 
timental charity is being replaced by a finer and 
more constructive kind. But the poor, the weak 


74 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


and the unfortunate are perennials which still blos¬ 
som in any soil and any clime. 

The socially oppressed, comprising millions of 
outcastes in India—to touch whom would be to de¬ 
file a person of higher caste; the Ewa in Japan— 
that group which came into existence to slaughter 
flesh so that a good Buddhist or Shintoist might 
not be polluted by touching a carcass! that group 
set apart by barriers of custom and religion until 
they have become a problem to the new Japan; the 
South American Indians—so long exploited by 
conquering races; the socially oppressed who con¬ 
stitute so large a part of community life in these 
groups, do not cease to exist when they touch the 
United States. Has not North America also many 
blots on the fair page of her history? The treat¬ 
ment of the Indian, the alien, the negro, are mighty 
problems which loom large in the minds and con¬ 
sciences of those who believe in the right of all 
God’s children to share alike in their Father’s in¬ 
heritance. 

The play instinct springs spontaneously into ex¬ 
pression wherever there is life and health and 
youth. A circle of Japanese babies looking like gay 
flowers in their brilliant kimonos, romp and sing 
and play with the same joyous abandon in a pic¬ 
turesque Japanese village as in a New York City 
park. Every group, every community, recognizes 
this human need of expression and makes some 
provision to meet it. Village greens in England, 


THE ART OF LIVING TOGETHER 


75 


baseball fields in the United States, bare places 
in the jungles of Africa—all resounding with the 
shouts of nations at play! Theodore Roosevelt 
told of finding a fascinating game of head ball 
among the natives of a village in the country 
covered by his journey through northern South 
America. The enthusiasm, the fun, the sportsman¬ 
ship of this game, seen for the first time by white 
men, were never excelled, Mr. Roosevelt said, in a 
football match in the United States. 

Housing the World Over 

Whether we be Burmese or Americans—a place 
to lay our heads at night, a bit of shelter when the 
rains come, four walls to call home, answers a uni¬ 
versal craving of the human race. With the ad¬ 
vance of civilization, housing its inhabitants has 
become one of the most complex problems of the 
community. In the same cities are great stretches 
of costly dwellings, denoting beauty and space and 
health for their occupants, and vast districts of 
slums where human beings crowd together in con¬ 
ditions which bespeak only sin and dirt and dis¬ 
ease. In the beautiful city of Buenos Aires, in the 
spacious country of the Argentine, where luxury 
runs riot, are slums in which there are often as 
many as fifteen in one room. The problems of hous¬ 
ing complex in Shanghai—in Madras—in Tokyo! 
God’s children everywhere seeking shelter. 


76 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


Religion and Education—East and West 

Rosy-cheeked Anglo-Saxons trudge, with books 
under their arms, to village schools just as cunning 
almond-eyed Orientals go to theirs; and all absorb 
the traditions and the customs of their races 
through the various methods of education worked 
out by each community. 

The Orient, roused by the soft tone of temple 
bells—the Occident called by the sweet chime of vil¬ 
lage churches! Both go forth to worship in the edi¬ 
fices erected by communities to answer the spiritual 
needs of their inhabitants. 

In the crowds and confusion of modern life, be 
it East or be it West, God is working through the 
age-old channels of human contacts. “God’s in the 
Occident—God’s in the Orient.” 

Reading References 

Working Women of the Orient, Chapter Five. 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Chapter 
Eight. 

Housing Reform, The Outlook, January 15, 1919. 

A Million Social Outcastes, World Outlook, Sep¬ 
tember, 1919. 

Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. Why do people work? 

2. What does being a member of a community 
mean to you? 


THE ART OF LIVING TOGETHER 


77 


3. List the problems in your community oc¬ 
cupying the attention of thoughtful people. 

4. In what ways is poor housing reflected in 
the life of a community ? 

5. What bearing will educating women in the 
intelligent use of the ballot have on the race ques¬ 
tion in America? 

6. Do you think our treatment of the alien is 
Christian ? 

7. Discuss what a woman may do to bring 
about better living conditions in her community. 

8. Would the community life of an American 
city impress a foreigner as being Christian? 

9. Would the problems of an American com¬ 
munity have any application if they were trans¬ 
ferred to Shanghai? To Buenos Aires? 

10. What do you think of the truth of Japan’s 
statement that the West supports double standards 
of justice ? 

11. Do you believe that God works through 
human contacts ? Discuss. 


Can you be a hermit 
today? 

You need folks 
Folks need you 

Be 

a World Citizen 


A World of Neighbors 
Postergraph IX 



CHAPTER NINE 
A WORLD OF NEIGHBORS 

“For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to him¬ 
self.” 

—Romans 14: 7. 

Nature’s Fight against Isolation 

The soft breeze of summer wafting on its warm 
breath the pollen of vegetation is the arch enemy 
of isolation. The scientist may spend years of 
study and experimentation in developing a mam¬ 
moth ear of corn, a delicious melon. He may try 
as he will to isolate his discovery and safeguard it 
on every hand, but the summer wind may defeat 
his purpose. The stunted ear of corn in the ad¬ 
joining field, the inferior melon in the next patch, 
may profit by their proximity to their distinguished 
neighbor. 

Nations Bound Together 

There are other pollens that refuse to be con¬ 
trolled by the fixed ideas of national and racial 
distinctions. A rash word is heard in the Senate 
Chamber at Washington. On the winds of elec¬ 
tricity it finds lodgment in the streets of Tokyo and 
bears fruit of international discord and misunder¬ 
standing. Jane Addams works tirelessly for the 


80 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


release of Alice Masaryk from a foul prison, and 
the fruitage comes in a deepening friendship with a 
grateful Czecho-Slovakian womanhood. Chinese 
laborers are needed for reconstruction work in 
France. There they acquire good wages and per¬ 
haps something of Western ideas, which may blos¬ 
som later in curious fashion in their native prov¬ 
inces. Fashion dictates a smooth coiffure for Amer¬ 
ican women, and thousands of Chinese girls, as a 
result, use their brothers’ discarded queues to make 
hair nets which satisfy the Western demand, and 
put rice into the empty bowls in the province of 
Shantung. From East to West—and West to 
East! Every contact is fertilized with a pollen 
which will blossom into fruits of discord or into 
new flowers of international good will. 

Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, in a recent talk, 
told a story of the sudden increase in Sicilian immi¬ 
gration a few years ago. Upon investigation it was 
discovered that with the invention of the refriger¬ 
ator car, by which fruit from California and Flor¬ 
ida could be successfully transported to Eastern 
markets, the orange business in Sicily had been 
affected. Laborers without work in the orange 
groves decided to emigrate from their native shores. 
The refrigerator car as a pollen-bearer brought 
many new citizens to the United States. 

The World—a Neighborhood 

The world may be likened to a neighborhood in 


A WORLD OF NEIGHBORS 


81 


which, with no knowledge of one another’s social 
position, church or cultural background, there was 
no friendly intercourse. When a catastrophe came 
to that neighborhood—an earthquake, a flood, a 
fire—everyone forgot differences of wealth, of edu¬ 
cation and religion and found that underneath the 
social veneer they were, first of all, just people. So 
it was with the war. Pollen borne on the winds of 
hate and greed and suspicion—found fertile con¬ 
tact in the hearts of nations. Out of the cataclys¬ 
mic war that resulted, the races of the world, like 
one great neighborhood, rallied together—learned 
more of one another’s viewpoint than in a cycle of 
years before—and emerged from the ordeal, if not 
better friends, at least more understanding neigh¬ 
bors. 

The War Teaches Us Geography 

Mr. Earl Taylor says that before the war people 
didn’t know whether the Ukraine was a river or a 
breakfast food and didn’t care. 

Now we realize how dependent we are upon the 
rest of the world for our material comforts. Mr. 
George Harris in 1 ‘ Moral Evolution, ’ ’ says : 11 When 
he (an American) rises, a sponge is placed in his 
hand by a Pacific Islander, a cake of soap by a 
Frenchman, a rough towel by a Turk. His merino 
underwear he takes from the hand of a Spaniard, his 
linen from a Belfast manufacturer, his outer gar¬ 
ments from a Birmingham weaver, his scarf from a 


82 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


French silk grower, his shoes from a Brazilian 
grazier. At breakfast his cup of coffee is poured 
by natives of Java and Arabia; his rolls are passed 
by a Kansas farmer, his beefsteak by a Texan 
ranchman, his orange by a Florida negro.’’ The 
nations of the world ministering to one another’s 
wants! 

Changes of the War 

The winds of war carried strange pollen into far¬ 
away corners of the earth where it vitalized the 
anasmic and sterile plants indigenous to that soil 
into luxuriant and hardy growths. Changes that 
would have taken centuries to accomplish under 
ordinary conditions, have happened in the twinkling 
of an eye. Jerusalem has fallen and the Jews, after 
two thousand years of wandering, a homeless peo¬ 
ple, are fired anew with the hope of again develop¬ 
ing a national life in the city of their fathers. 
Jerusalem lifted out of the antiquity of the past 
and made a living issue of the present! 

In India, caste lines were broken for the first time 
when thousands of men, loyal to Great Britain, 
crossed the sea and fought shoulder to shoulder with 
aliens and outcastes. Though they carried with 
them their caste cooks, it was not always possible 
to eat the food they had prepared; so they ate occa¬ 
sionally the ordinary army fare. In hospitals they 
were cared for by unveiled women not of their own 
families, and found them pure and good. When 


A WORLD OF NEIGHBORS 83 

the Indian troops were thrown against the Turk— 
follower of Mohammed fighting against follower of 
Mohammed—it was felt that a new era had indeed 
begun. Many of the millions of soldiers returning 
to India are carrying with them, it is hoped, a new 
ideal for an India torn by caste distinctions and 
tragic in its unenlightened womanhood. 

England has elected a woman to a seat in Parlia¬ 
ment—all British precedent to the contrary! China 
sent a woman in her delegation to the Peace Con¬ 
ference. The United States is entering into national 
prohibition, called by Bishop Bashford “the great¬ 
est piece of constructive legislation in American 
history since the amendment prohibiting slavery,” 
and suffrage for women is just hesitating at the 
threshold, waiting to become a part of the Con¬ 
stitution. An impetus to democratic government is 
felt around the globe and small nations are seeth¬ 
ing with a desire for self-determination. 

God Works through Events 

No matter how disappointed one may be with the 
Peace Treaty—in the spiritual outcome of the 
war—one’s faith is constantly upheld by the evi¬ 
dence that God is working out his great world pur¬ 
poses. He has taken the nations from their isolation 
and, through their common interests, has inextri¬ 
cably bound them together into one great neighbor¬ 
hood. Each country, like a delicately adjusted 
piece of machinery, is affected by any disturbance 


84 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


to its neighbor. 4 ‘ For none of us liveth to himself, ’’ 
are God’s words of admonition to his children, and 
a new knowledge of the interrelation and interde¬ 
pendence of the races of the world is the best basis 
for the kind of international understanding that 
will further the progress of God’s kingdom among 
men. 

Reading References 

Working Women of the Orient, Chapter Five. 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Chapter 
Eleven. 

The Eyes of Asia, Rudyard Kipling. 

India’s Women Are Finding Themselves, World 
Outlook, July, 1915. 

With the Chinese Industrial Army in France, 
World Outlook, April, 1919. 

The War Threw the Spotlight on Africa, World 
Outlook, April, 1919. 

Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. In what ways has the war affected your 
thinking? Has it broadened your horizon? 

2. What has the war shown us of unity ? 

3. What do you mean by interrelation and 
interdependence ? 

4. What does democracy mean to you? 

5. What for you is the content of the word 
missions ? 


A WORLD OF NEIGHBORS 


85 


6. What elements in our Western civilization 
act as deterrent to the Christian development of 
other nations? 

7. Discuss what is the responsibility of Ameri¬ 
can women in promoting democracy. 

8. What unsocial principles are found in the 
Hindu religion? 

9. How have these affected the life of India? 

10. What possibilities can you see as a result 

of Indian soldiers fighting in Europe? 


Do you dare 
to be 

one of the world’s 
Crusaders? 

The Quest waits for 

YOU 


‘The Vision Splendid 
Postergraph X 



CHAPTER TEN 


“THE VISION SPLENDID” 

“Where are yon going, Great Heart? 

1 To cleanse the earth of noisome things, 

To draw from life its poison stings, 

To give free play to Freedom’s wings. ’ 

Then God go with you, Great Heart! 

“Where are you going, Great Heart? 

‘To lift Today above the Past; 

To make tomorrow sure and fast; 

To nail God’s colors to the mast! ’ 

Then God go with you, Great Heart! , ’ 

—From “The Vision Splendid,” by John Oxenham. 


The Crusader of Long Ago 

The knight of old riding forth to battle for truth 
and justice presented a bewildering array of bur¬ 
nished accoutrement. Not a thing that would add 
to the success of his quest was overlooked: helmet, 
buckler and shield, his polished sword—all were in 
readiness for the fray. Equipped with all the 
armor that human ingenuity of the period could 
provide, his heart glowing with the oath he had 
given to his king, he ventured forth “redressing 
human wrongs.” 


88 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


The Call To-Day 

In answer to God’s call to enlist in the most fas¬ 
cinating crusade of all history—the interpreting of 
the signs of the times—to rediscover God in his 
world—comes a unanimity of response that shows 
the awakened interest of the individual in such a 
form of world service. The knight of old had every¬ 
thing to make his quest successful. Has the Cru¬ 
sader of to-day ? If he is to break a lance with evil 
and tyranny, with disease and injustice—if he is to 
proclaim God in everything and through every¬ 
thing—if he is to interpret the love of Jesus Christ 
and the brotherhood of man to those bewildered by 
the apparent gulf between labor and religion—if 
he is to teach human beings that they are all mem¬ 
bers of one family, sharing one inheritance regard¬ 
less of color or creed, then what of his equipment ? 

The Crusader’s Equipment 

He must know God. He must be able to find 
Him in the quiet of a starlit night—in the heat of 
a glowing steel furnace—in the bowed figures of 
sorrowing women—in silver tones of laughter. He 
must feel Him in the march of human events—in 
the unrest of warworn peoples. He must interpret 
Him—the One who changeth not—in terms that 
appeal to East and West alike. “For there is no 
distinction between Jew and Greek: for the same 
Lord is Lord of all. ’ ’ 


“THE VISION SPLENDID * 1 89 

He must have in his heart a burning conviction 
of the efficacy of the message he carries: of its power 
to transform life—to lift women out of servitude 
into the joy of living—to give to pallid children 
their rightful inheritance—to help men to walk 
uprightly in a great brotherhood ruled by com¬ 
passion and justice. 

He must have a respect for the traditions of other 
peoples—realizing that in the contribution the West 
has to make to the world, she must receive as well 
as give. As a nation we have been convicted of pro¬ 
vincial arrogance in trying to force our Western 
civilization upon other countries. We have labored 
under the delusion that the religion of Jesus Christ 
and Western civilization must go hand in hand to 
the Orient, forgetting that Christianity came to us 
from the East, glowing with Oriental color and 
pageantry. We must be willing to learn of older 
and richer civilizations. They have costly gifts 
ready for our taking. The patience, the faithful¬ 
ness of the Chinese; the quick courtesy and loyalty 
of the Japanese; the spirituality of India that puts 
to shame our Western superficiality of worship; the 
imagination and keen appreciation of beauty that 
characterize the Latin American; all of these and 
their rich cultural background would supplement 
and round out the somewhat angular frame of our 
Western civilization. 


90 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


Respect for the Traditions and Religions of Other 
Peoples 

Our Crusader must forget prejudices. He must 
be as willing to ascribe noble qualities to the Peru¬ 
vian Indian as to himself. He must know the beau¬ 
ties to be found in other religions. Daniel Johnson 
Fleming says in his “Marks of a World Christian”: 
“More than one missionary in China carries with 
him the Analects of Confucius and finds in them 
many a point of contact for a Christian message. It 
was the conviction of this truth which led a mis¬ 
sionary, famous for his knowledge of Indian 
thought and famous also for the number of con¬ 
verts he had won, to say that it was the bounden 
duty of every missionary to India to read the 
Bhagavad-Gita through once a year at least. ’ ’ 

The Magnitude of the Task 

Armed with this equipment of a close communion 
with God,—of an imperishable belief in his mes¬ 
sage,—of a respect and appreciation for the culture 
and religious teachings of other peoples,—our mod¬ 
em Crusader gazes at the world task ahead of him. 
So great is the battlefield—so many the enemies— 
vice, ignorance and superstition—that he could 
never dare to advance alone; but he has an ally 
equal to the task. Without God he could do noth¬ 
ing ; with Him he knows it can be accomplished. 


“THE VISION SPLENDID ’* 


91 


The Christian Attitude 

In interpreting God in the signs of the times, the 
content of the word missions must be enlarged to 
include, not only the nations overseas, hut the home 
base as well. Quoting again from “The Marks of 
a World Christian,” Mr. Fleming says: “Foreign 
missions, however, are simply the expression toward 
certain distant people of the distinctively Christian 
attitude toward all need. The missionary attitude 
toward the Chinese is simply the Christian attitude 
toward life expressed in the locality of China. The 
missionary consciousness is not a matter of geog¬ 
raphy. Whether it is a row of lepers beside the 
Ganges or an Italian community across our railway 
tracks; whether it is the famine orphans of India 
or the undernourished children of our crowded city 
blocks; whether it is factory conditions in Japan or 
munition workers in our neighborhood home town, 
the disposition to go out in loving service is a mani¬ 
festation of the same spirit.” We must take for¬ 
eign missions from the isolated niche it has so long 
occupied—dusty many times from disuse—and 
make it an enlarged conception of Christian liv¬ 
ing—an indissoluble part of our social faith. 

Seeing the World Whole 

With an enlarged conception of Christian living, 
the world as a whole, not as isolated parts, swings 
into our ken. We see the women of the world, not 
as black or yellow, not as Oriental or Occidental, 


92 


THE ULTIMATE QUEST 


but as women—the mothers of the race—sharing in 
common the joys and sorrows of womanhood. We 
see them in field and factory taking part in the 
economic development of the world and ever stum¬ 
bling, striving toward all that is good and beautiful 
in life. We see them as students seeking to serve; 
as social reformers ameliorating human suffering; 
as thinkers and writers and teachers proclaiming 
God in the changing status of women—in the 
onrush of democracy through the world—in the 
marvelous developments of science which have 
made of the nations a neighborhood. We see God 
in the interdependence of peoples and in the re¬ 
sponse of the individual to His call. Having caught 
the vision of a world task we will “carry on and 
complete the adventure .’’ 

Reading References 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Chapters One, 
Two, Three, Four, Eight. 

Working Women of the Orient, Chapter Six. 

Understanding South America, Chapters Twenty- 
six, Twenty-seven. 


Suggested Questions for Discussion 

1. What are some of the evil effects which con¬ 
tact with Western civilization has had on China? 

2. List the contributions that the Orient can 
make to our Western culture. 


“THE VISION SPLENDID ’’ 93 

3. Is the religion of Jesus Christ adequate to 
change conditions in South America and the 
Orient ? 

4. What answer would you make to a person 
who says that “Charity begins at home”? 

5. What do you think it means to be a Chris¬ 
tian? 

6. What do you consider the necessary equip¬ 
ment for a missionary ? 




































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